Small fry leap into e-world

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If your small business isn't connected to the net yet, you'd
better get cracking. A new survey suggests Australia's small
businesses have moved well past the need for an internet presence
and are looking to drive real returns out of their investment.

According to the Sensis e-Business Report, nine out of 10
small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have brought their business
online and, thanks largely to the advent of broadband, more than 60
per cent have already recovered their investment.

"Once upon a time, a company went in and did their own website
just because they wanted to have a presence," said the report's
author, Christena Singh. "Now they're saying, 'we need to get a
return on this'."

Sixty-three per cent of SMEs connected to the net are now on
broadband, a jump of 20 per cent on last year's survey.

Tourism and hospitality continued to get the strongest returns
from their online investment. Several manufacturers were also
seeing the benefits of having their products spread across the
World Wide Web.

The survey found 13 per cent of SMEs were doing most of their
selling online and 15 per cent did most of their procurement over
the web. "In some ways, e-commerce is actually teaching businesses
how to be exporters," Ms Singh said. "Over a third of businesses
that sell online are now making sales overseas."

The report includes the views of 1800 small and medium
businesses this year and, for the first time, 1500 consumers. While
72 per cent of Australian homes now have the internet, the survey
found a significant digital divide still existed between rich and
poor families. Only half the households with an average income of
$35,000 or under were connected to the net; 86 per cent of those
earning $85,000 or more a year were connected.